The outburst from the Russian Foreign Ministry is not only an attack on Netanyahu’s words about Iran and the Holocaust. It is also a demonstration that for the Kremlin, Israeli partners from the so-called ‘other league’, no matter how convenient or familiar they may seem, have no real value when Iran, the anti-Western coalition, and its own propaganda agenda are on the other side of the scale.
On April 21, 2026, the Russian Foreign Ministry effectively opened a new stage of verbal attacks on Israel, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “disrespecting the victims of World War II,” the Holocaust, and the so-called “genocide of the Soviet people.” The reason was the speech of the Israeli government head at the state ceremony of Memorial Day for the Fallen, where Netanyahu stated that the Iranian regime planned a new Holocaust and that under different circumstances, the names Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz could become symbols of catastrophe for the Jewish people, like Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka.
In her separate statement, Maria Zakharova not only criticized the words of the Israeli prime minister but attempted to build an entire ideological construct where Israel is accused of distorting history, Ukraine of Nazism, and Iran is effectively removed from the main blow.
Maria Zakharova is one of the most prominent public voices of Russian foreign policy. She has held the position of Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the official representative of the Foreign Ministry since August 2015; open biographical references also indicate that she is a member of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s board. Her relations with the top of power are better described not as an ‘independent center of influence’ but as a very loyal public speaker of the system. Formally, she works in the Foreign Ministry’s vertical under Minister Sergey Lavrov, but in fact, she often voices and defends the broader Kremlin line on foreign policy, the war against Ukraine, and international crises. That is why her statements are usually perceived not as a personal opinion but as part of the official Russian position. After the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Zakharova was sanctioned by the EU, the UK, the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, Ukraine, New Zealand, and other countries as one of the key public figures of the Russian state line.
For the Israeli audience, not only the tone of the Russian reaction is important here, but also its content. Moscow does not argue with Netanyahu about the essence of the threat from Tehran. Instead, the Russian side once again shifts the conversation to its familiar propaganda genre: moral preaching, substitution of concepts, manipulation of the memory of World War II, and an attempt to involve Ukraine in any international dispute, even if it was initially about Iran and Israel’s security.
What exactly did Netanyahu say and what did Zakharova respond to
At the center of the scandal are Netanyahu’s words that
“In every generation, they rise against us to destroy us — and in this generation too. The regime in Iran planned another Holocaust. It intended to destroy us with nuclear bombs and thousands of ballistic missiles.”
Earlier, the Israeli prime minister also warned that if Israel had not taken its fate into its own hands, “the names Isfahan, Natanz, Fordow, and Bushehr would sound like Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Sobibor.”
For Israeli society, this logic is understandable. When the head of government speaks about Iran through the images of the Holocaust, he appeals not to an abstract historical analogy but to the deepest point of Jewish historical memory — the fear of a repeat catastrophe and the conviction that Israel must prevent such a threat in advance.
Maria Zakharova’s response was constructed as a demonstrative denial of this framework. She sarcastically asked: “Did Iran also commit the first Holocaust?” — and reminded that in 1943, Iran under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi declared war on Nazi Germany. The Russian representative then followed the familiar scheme of expanding the accusation, claiming that the responsibility for the Holocaust lies not only with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy but also with “Baltic and Ukrainian collaborators,” after which she again shifted the blow to Kyiv.
Why this is not just polemics, but a political technology
The point of such a response is not to clarify historical details.
The point is to divert the conversation from the Iranian threat and replace it with a dispute over who has the right to use historical analogies. Moscow is effectively telling Israel: you do not have the right to describe a possible threat of destruction in your own words if those words do not coincide with the Russian state version of the memory of World War II.
This is especially telling because Russian rhetoric itself has long been built on the constant mixing of different eras, concepts, and conflicts. There, ‘Nazism’, ‘Fascism’, ‘genocide of the Soviet people’, Ukraine, NATO, World War II, and any modern opponents of the Kremlin coexist side by side. When Zakharova accuses Israel of substituting concepts, it sounds like a classic inversion: it is Russian propaganda that has been turning history into a tool of current political struggle for years.
How Moscow uses the Holocaust theme against Israel
In her post, Zakharova wrote that mentioning Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Sobibor in the context of the threat to Israel of a ‘nuclear Holocaust’ from Iran is ‘a manifestation of disrespect to all the victims of World War II, the victims of the genocide of the Soviet people, the victims of the Holocaust, as well as the Red Army soldiers who liberated the death camps.’
According to her version, this is ‘inappropriate’ because it allegedly ‘substitutes concepts and distorts historical facts.’
Here lies the main ideological core of the Russian position.
Moscow is trying to impose on Israel the idea that even the threat of its possible destruction cannot be described through concepts born of Jewish historical experience if these concepts are not approved by the Russian foreign policy apparatus. In other words, the Kremlin claims not just its interpretation of the war, but the right to control someone else’s memory.
For Israel, this is especially sensitive. The State of Israel emerged after the Catastrophe precisely as a space where the Jewish people should no longer ask anyone for permission for self-defense. When the Russian Foreign Ministry begins to lecture the Israeli prime minister on how he can or cannot speak about the threat of destruction, it looks not like the protection of memory, but like an attempt at political pressure through memory.
Why in this text Russia is effectively covering for Iran
Equally important is another quote from Zakharova’s post.
She separately stated: ‘Who, if not Israel, knows that Bushehr is a project exclusively about peaceful nuclear energy, as repeatedly confirmed by the IAEA.’ She then suggested listening to Sergey Lavrov’s words that the main issue should remain preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and the guideline could be a return to the 2015 agreement formula.
This is no longer just a dispute about Netanyahu’s rhetoric.
This is effectively diplomatic protection of the Iranian position under the guise of a conversation about facts and international control. Moscow is again trying to present the problem as if the main danger here is not Tehran’s actions and not Israel’s fear of the Iranian program, but supposedly excessive emotionality and historical ‘inaccuracy’ of the Israeli leadership.
For the Israeli audience, this moment is especially important. When Russia simultaneously attacks the comparison with the Holocaust, defends the ‘peaceful atom’ in Bushehr, and refers to previous agreements on Iran, it becomes clear: it is not about historical sensitivity, but about a very specific foreign policy line.
In this context, Nikk.Agency — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers it essential to emphasize: the Russian reaction to Netanyahu’s words is not a dispute about the correctness of formulations, but an attempt to seize the very framework of discussion. Israel speaks of a potential existential threat. Moscow responds in such a way that the discussion is no longer about Iran, but about whether Israel has the right to its language of historical anxiety.
Why Zakharova again involved Ukraine
One of the most telling elements of her post is the return to the Ukrainian theme.
Zakharova wrote that since 2014, Israel allegedly ‘has not said a bad word about the Kyiv regime,’ which, according to her version, made national heroes of ‘executioners of the Jewish people’ and other ‘Banderites and SS-Galicians.’ She then added another typical Kremlin construction: as if the Bank of England was behind the sponsorship of the Nazi party, and ‘in general, all the same people’ who now stand behind Kyiv.
For Moscow, this is already a standard mechanism.
Any conversation about war, memory, victims, anti-Semitism, or the Holocaust in Russian rhetoric almost automatically leads to attacks on Ukraine. This is not an accident, but a systematic propaganda scheme. Israel in such a scheme is needed not as an interlocutor, but as a symbolic resource: Russian diplomacy tries to use the sensitivity of the Jewish theme to strengthen its own anti-Ukrainian line.
What all this means for Israel
For Israel, this episode is important on several levels.
Firstly, it shows that Russia increasingly speaks to the Jewish state not in the language of partnership, but of ideological pressure.
Secondly, it demonstrates that the Holocaust theme in Russian foreign policy has long been used not as a memory of tragedy, but as a tool of influence.
Thirdly, it confirms: when Israel speaks of Iran as an existential threat, Moscow seeks not to discuss the threat itself, but to discredit the form in which Israel speaks about it.
That is why the current scandal is broader than just a verbal skirmish between Netanyahu and Zakharova. It is part of the struggle for the right to define the meaning of history, the language of memory, and the framework of conversation about modern evil. Russia is trying to tell Israel: we will decide what is permissible for you to compare with the Holocaust and what is not. For the Jewish state, the very posing of such a question already looks deeply problematic.
Why this outburst from Moscow is also important as a signal to Israel itself
The political meaning of the attack on Benjamin Netanyahu personally deserves special attention. Within Israel, he is a deeply controversial figure. He has a solid electoral base, but there is also strong public rejection associated with both domestic politics and issues of security, judicial reform, war, and personal political survival. At the same time, for many years, Netanyahu attached great importance to special and, as he himself liked to show, almost personal working relations with Putin.
That is why the current attack from Moscow looks especially telling for the Israeli audience. The Russian side is attacking not some inherently anti-Russian Israeli politician, but a person who in Russia itself was recently still perceived as a convenient, understandable, and pragmatic partner. This changes the very optics of what is happening. It turns out that even the presence of previous contacts, cautious rhetoric, and attempts to maintain communication channels do not give Israel any guarantees against public political humiliation if Moscow believes its interests are affected.
What this says about the real priorities of the Kremlin
The episode with Zakharova shows a simple thing: for Moscow, Iran and its own strategic interests are clearly more important than any previous ‘friendly relations’ with Israeli leaders. When there is a choice between the convenient image of Netanyahu as an old interlocutor for the Kremlin and the need to protect Tehran, Moscow without hesitation chooses the latter.
Moreover, this story demonstrates that in the Kremlin’s logic, so-called friends from the outer circle are valuable only as long as they do not interfere with a larger geopolitical game. As soon as it comes to an alliance with Iran, anti-Israeli rhetoric, or a propaganda attack, no old diplomatic chemistry matters anymore. For Israel, this is an unpleasant but important reminder: in Putin’s system of coordinates, personal contacts, compliments, and previous communication channels are always secondary to the regime’s interests.
Why this is important for Israeli society
For many in Israel, there was long a notion that Netanyahu’s special style of communication with Putin could at least partially soften the Russian line. But the current story shows the opposite. If Moscow publicly strikes even such an Israeli prime minister, it means the limit of this ‘special connection’ has long been reached or perhaps was always greatly exaggerated.
In this sense, Zakharova’s outburst is not only an attack on Netanyahu’s words about Iran and the Holocaust. It is also a demonstration that for the Kremlin, Israeli partners from the so-called ‘other league’, no matter how convenient or familiar they may seem, have no real value when Iran, the anti-Western coalition, and its own propaganda agenda are on the other side of the scale.